


Dance

by supposed2bfunny



Category: Gorillaz
Genre: 2doc - Freeform, M/M, niccalpot, siren au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-30
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2019-07-20 20:23:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16144832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/supposed2bfunny/pseuds/supposed2bfunny
Summary: After being rescued by a siren, Murdoc slowly recovers, alone in a cove with only his rescuer for companionship. Stu does what he can to make Murdoc's recovery and isolation as pleasant as possible. Inspired by Kaibutsuko's Siren Au on Tumblr.





	Dance

Murdoc was currently surviving in a liminal place.

He was not exactly dead, but he was aware that he very well may die. He was breathing and his heart was beating, but he wasn’t _living_. And each day he was aware for certain that he would not survive much longer in his current situation.

After nearly being murdered by his own brother Hannibal and his vicious crew of pirates, rescued by a siren—a creature that by all means should have eaten him—and brought to a small cove to recover from his near-death experience, he had been stable but trapped with his own thoughts, which was always a dangerous situation.

At the very least, by now he was fairly certain that the overgrown fish (Stupid Fish, as he’d taken to calling it) was not planning to kill him. The same siren that had for some reason taken pity on him and saved him from drowning, and who had also carried him to this cove to recover, was the only other being he had been in contact with for weeks now, and he simultaneously craved their daily interactions and shied away from them.

One the one hand, Stupid Fish—recently, he’d started just calling him Stu as the siren picked up more and more English and felt less and less like a deep-sea menace—was kind. No matter how black Murdoc’s moods became, and no matter how many times he snapped for the siren to fuck off and leave him alone, Stu came at the end of the day without fail, bringing fish and shellfish for Murdoc to eat.

The pirate was aware that a diet of only fish was not healthy, and he was slightly concerned by how loose his pants were becoming. Eventually lack of proper nutrition was going to lead to illness, he knew that. But he truly appreciated how invested the siren was in his health, always chirping encouragingly as he swam up to the shore of the cove, dropping off his catch of the day and eagerly waiting for the pirate to dig in.

It wasn’t just food though. The siren brought him sea glass, shells, seaweed—anything that caught his eye, he would bring it to the shore and leave it for Murdoc. The pirate didn’t always know what to do with the “gifts,” but he’d begun accepting them, using loose threads from his clothes to string shells into necklaces to wear, or showing Stu how to hold the sea glass up to the light to observe the pretty colors better. Over time, the siren was even becoming somewhat of a conversationalist, communicating in broken English what he saw underwater when he was away from the pirate.

Murdoc had learned that Stu was a deep-sea siren, but tended to stay in shallow water due to a fear of whales. He learned that Stu was not particularly close to his clan of sirens, and that he was often lonely.

Stu also frequently communicated how badly he wanted Murdoc to join him underwater.

And there was the problem.

For as much as Murdoc wanted to leave the cove and try to make his way back to civilization, something had gone horribly wrong, something that he hated confronting with his rescuer.

It would be a fairly easy swim underwater to follow the siren out into open water through the cove. He knew that with the gills he’d gained from the siren’s kiss, he would be able to survive even if the swim underwater were to last for several minutes. While he was still pretty badly bruised from the tight chains that had nearly sunk him, and he wasn’t at his most physically fit due to lack of proper nutrition, he’d always been a strong swimmer and knew he could manage.

But since the night that Stu had rescued him, something had shifted in his psyche. The first day in the cove with the siren, Stu had tried to show him the way out, to guide him along and teach him how to use his new gills. Murdoc, still not certain whether or not the siren could be trusted, had been hesitant. Then again, he didn’t want to stay trapped in a cove forever, so he’d eventually allowed the siren to take his hand gently and guide him into the water. Gentle; the siren was always so careful with Murdoc, apparently able to sense how tumultuous his moods were, and how jumpy he was since the night they met.

That day, Murdoc had followed along easily; the water was warm, and soon they were towards the edge of the cove, ready to descend down and swim out into open water.

But as soon as his head went underwater, he was back on Hannibal’s ship, being thrown backwards over the side of the boat and plunging to his death. The memory was so vivid that he’d broken away from Stu, screaming and scrambling back onto shore, panic overtaking his body as adrenaline coursed through him, the fear just as visceral and all-consuming as it had been when it actually happened. Stu had been patient, trying multiple times to coax him back in, but Murdoc wouldn’t have it. Each time he got in deeper than his waist, he felt as though he was drowning again, even as the gills on his neck opened up, ready to help him breathe.

Though not a smooth conversationalist, Stu was an excellent empath, and he seemed to understand Murdoc’s anxiety. Each day, he would try to convince Murdoc to join him in the water. Some days were better than others. A few times, Murdoc was even able to swim alongside the siren for a bit.

“Good! Murdoc, good!” Stu had chirped. “Come with Me, Stupid Fish!”

But as soon as he dove down, Murdoc found he couldn’t follow. “Sorry, pet. Maybe tomorrow?”

And each day ended in failure.

He wondered how long it would be before the siren got sick of the charity work and either ate him, or left him to starve. Because at this rate, they were both getting frustrated with his inability to help himself.

Thus, the afternoons that Stu left him alone were the worst. He was left with his thoughts: memories of his time spent on his brother’s ship, the way the crew had picked on him and ostracized him (following Hannibal’s lead, naturally). Sometimes his memories brought him back to drowning, to his blurry memories of Stu approaching him underwater, the eerie blue-green glow of his esca. Occasionally, although his memory had blocked out most of the details, he would have flash-backs to the sounds of human screams and siren wails as Stu had helped him return to the surface once he’d been freed of the anchor and chains. The sounds of the sirens closing in on the ship were the worst thing Murdoc had ever heard.

Those memories, however vague, were the worst. He was too scared to ask Stu if he had feasted on any human flesh since rescuing the pirate.

Most often, his thoughts were simply self-depreciation. For all his aspirations in life, he’d been an utter cock-up.

He couldn’t even swim his way to safety even though he had fucking gills now, all because of his stupid anxiety, the overpowering fear of death that even a fucking siren’s kiss couldn’t cure. And so he was trapped, alone save for a siren that would surely eventually grow to despise him (just like everyone else did), waiting for death. It was a strange way to end life, this drawn-out waiting, lingering in a place he didn’t belong, no longer entirely human, but also not a siren.

A loser caught between two worlds, land and sea, human and other, life and death.

He was curled up in a ball one evening, lost in those thoughts, when he heard the splash of someone rising up out of the water behind him.

“That you, Stu?” he asked. He couldn’t shake the fear that another siren would eventually follow his savior and find him. And he knew not all sirens were as human-friendly as his.

“Me, Stupid Fish!”

The familiar voice called back its affirmation, and Murdoc quickly sat up, trying to push away the negative thoughts that he knew the siren could sense on him. It was embarrassing to be so depressed and reliant.

He noticed immediately when the siren didn’t clamber up onto land like he usually did to greet Murdoc. He also didn’t seem to have any fish with him.

“What’s up, luv? No food for the weary sailor tonight? What’s with that look?”

The siren was hovering a few feet away, looking nervous. Finally, he gathered his words. “Murdoc, for me?”

It took the pirate only a second to decode the broken English. “For me?” Is what he’d asked when Stu had begun to leave him beach glass and shells in a small pile near the entrance to the cove. The siren had quickly learned to associate those words with gift-giving. Murdoc would ask it each time a new trinket was left on the sand for him. “For me?” Stu would light up (literally, his bioluminescent skin seemed to be somewhat connected to his emotions), and chirp the words back. “For me! For me!”

Stu had not yet untangled “you” from “me,” so it was pretty clear that he was trying to communicate that he had something to give the sailor.

“What is it, Stu? What have you got for me?”

After a moment’s hesitation, the siren brought his hands from behind his back and swam over to place something at the pirate’s feet.

Murdoc had to bite down on the inside of his cheek to keep himself from sobbing aloud.

There at his feet lay his guitar.

One of his most cherished possessions, soaking wet but otherwise looking as good as the day he’d last set it down in his quarters on board his brother’s ship.

“Wh-where did you get this?” he looked at the siren in total wonder.

“Ship,” Stu responded, eyes wide, clearly waiting to see whether the reaction would be positive or negative.

“You went back to my brother’s ship? The one your clan destroyed?” Technically the helmsman had destroyed it when he’d steered the ship right into rocks, but he’d done so because of siren calls.

Stu hesitated, then nodded. “Ship,” he repeated. “Good?”

The truth was, Murdoc didn’t know how to feel about it. One the one hand, it made him angry to know that the sirens who had killed his brother and crew were now raiding the remains of the beached ship, stealing all the gold and jewels inside of it. It was like adding insult to injury.

One the other had, why should he care? They’d all treated him like garbage and tossed him into the ocean. Now he was alive and they were all long gone, digested by a herd of underwater monsters. He had every right to reclaim his few earthly possessions.

“I’m amazed by the condition it’s in. Guess this wasn’t underwater; good to know the remains of the ship were beached,” he scooped the instrument up and let any remaining water inside of it pour out. “Do you know what this is?”

The siren nodded. “Music!”

“That’s right!” he lit up and made himself comfortable on some rocks along the shore and urged the siren to join him.

Stu obeyed, crawling up on his hands and sitting beside the pirate.

“What’s more, this is _my_ music. This actually belonged to me. Out of everything you could have brought to me from the ship, you picked up something that is _mine_. Very good fish, Stu. Good fish!”

“Me Stupid Fish!” he chirped, repeating some of his favorite words, the first ones he’d learned to respond to. “Good Fish!”

“That’s right,” he responded, plucking a few notes on his guitar and wincing. Of course. Stu’d carried the thing underwater to bring it here, and the sound that came out of his poor cherished instrument was terrible. Plus it had languished for weeks, untouched and unturned. It may never sound as good as it once had.

But he couldn’t let that get him down right now, this was the happiest he’d felt in days, holding the guitar against his body and feeling complete, letting his fingers pluck out a few chords, trying to tune it as best he could given the condition it was in. It was like a missing piece of his soul had just been slotted back into his body.

“You’ve heard humans make music with these things right?” he asked, and the siren nodded. “Well, pet, you’ve never heard anything like the music I can make. Could probably have been a professional musician had I not chosen to live life on the sea.”

And with that, he started to play. Hell, it sounded downright terrible, the water-logged instrument was sharp as could be. But chords were chords, and he went from absentmindedly fiddling out a few noises to playing some of his favorite sea shanties, eventually tapping his foot in time, letting his head fall forward and nodding along with the music.

Before he knew it, he was singing too, and he knew that however horrible the guitar sounded, his voice was worse. No one he’d met had ever hesitated to tell him how dreadful his singing voice was, no matter how much he loved music (and secretly loved to sing).

_“Farewell an’ adieu to you fair Spanish ladies,_

_farewell an’ adieu to you ladies of Spain,_

_for we’ve received orders for to sail for old England_

_and hope very shortly to see you again…”_

Unable to contain himself, he stood up, not caring that Stu was looking at him like he’d grown two heads, not caring that without a large group of men he couldn’t get all the beautiful harmonies right, not caring one bit because suddenly he was walking up and down the length of the cove, and with each verse, it seemed to him that his guitar sounded better and better, never mind that it was a little sharp.

_“Let every man here drink up his full bumper,_

_let every man here drink up his full bowl,_

_and let us be jolly and drown melancholy,_

_drink a health to each jovial an’ true-hearted soooul!_

Ahaha, did you hear that?”

He turned to Stu, bowing although the siren rudely did not think to clap, but he hardly cared. He’d gone so long without music that he had forgotten how good it felt sometimes to just let loose and have a little fun.

The siren tilted his head to the side, and then broke out into the biggest smile he’d ever given the pirate.

“Murdoc good!” he chirped.

“You like how I sing?” he asked hopefully, and the siren immediately made a face.

“No,” he clarified. “Murdoc…happy!”

Ah, so his approval was in the lifted mood, and not the quality of the sailor’s voice. Well, it was better than nothing.

“Damn right I’m happy, this guitar means the bloody world to me! I can’t believe I can make music again! I can play some of the songs I’ve been composing in my head I—”

He was cut off as Stu’s tail twitched. He’d learned a while ago that the siren’s tail turned into legs when outside of the water long enough. Before his eyes, the siren’s tail swished back and forth a few times, and moments later, two long slender legs had replaced it, Stu kicking them back and forth experimentally and covering his lap with his hands self-consciously.

“Oi, Stu, get up. I can play music and you can dance for me,” he suggested.

Stu snorted. “No.”

“Oh, come on!”

Stu gestured at his bare legs and now it was Murdoc’s turn to snort. The siren had stayed on land with Murdoc several times, and each time, he was newly humiliated by his own nudity. Apparently he felt no shame wearing no clothes so long as he had his tail, but as soon as his genitals were exposed in his more human-looking form, he became self-conscious and sulky.

“Alright, alright, here’s an idea,” Murdoc set his guitar down on a rock, and the siren looked at him curiously as he unbuttoned his shirt. Once it was removed, Murdoc wrapped the clothing around the siren’s trim waste, securing it by tying the sleeves together so that he had a sort of makeshift loincloth over his groin.

“See? Nice and dressed like a proper gentleman now! You look lovely! Hell, if I were a captain, I’d take you aboard for sure.

Stu was actually quite impressed, rushing to the water’s edge to look at his reflection and behold his semi-clothed state.

“Pretty!” he squeaked, various chirps and clicks coming from somewhere in the back of his throat.

“That’s right, you look pretty. Now can you dance?”

“Dance?”

“Like this,” Murdoc picked the guitar up and began playing another song, a lighthearted one he’d picked up somewhere in the Caribbean about pretty girls and quality rum. As he played, he danced, swaying his hips and kicking his feet out. “Dance!”

“Dance,” Stu repeated with less certainty, trying to imitate his movements and stumbling a bit in the sand, nearly losing his balance.

“Okay, I see. So this is new for you. That’s alright, pet, c’mere,” Murdoc put his music-making on hold to offer a hand to the siren, pulling him close and wrapping one arm around his waist, an instinctive move really, to help keep him stable. He pretended not to notice when the bioluminescence of Stu’s skin lit up a bit. “Just follow my lead, move your legs—no, dummy, the other way—that’s it, good! Really good, Stu! Not a stupid fish at all, are you?”

“Me Stupid Fish,” he croaked, but mostly because he knew that by saying that he’d get Murdoc to smile, giggling when he succeeded.

After a few more awkward steps, Stu wrapped his arms around Murdoc’s shoulders for lack of anywhere else to put them, and they fell into a rhythm, swaying back and forth in each other’s arms, smiling and humming the tune that Murdoc had just been playing.

“D’you like to dance, luv?”

“Good dance, good,” he affirmed, pressing his face into the crook of Murdoc’s neck.

The pirate felt his cheeks flush at the contact. Stu’s hair, while still damp with seawater, was incredibly soft and felt nice against his cheek. And the feeling of the siren’s chin pressed against his latent gills was—embarrassingly—quite pleasant, and gave him a warm feeling in his belly that he hadn’t experienced in ages.

The realization that hit him: that he was getting flustered from being pressed flush against a siren, was embarrassing as hell.

Yet he didn’t pull away.

Because for the first time since the night he had almost died, he felt calm, even happy. He was having a nice time, and Stu’s arms were holding him tight, and his own arms were around the siren’s back, pulling him ever-closer.

“Hey, luv. D’you think you could go back to the ship? Get some more of my music?”

“Me go ship, music?”

“Yeah. I’ve also got a flute I could play. And some maracas from Spain. There’s also a lute and oh, god I’d love to play my viola again if you can get the bow too!”

“Yes,” Stu promised. “Yes me go ship.”

“Thank you,” the relief was overwhelming, that after all he’d lost, Stu could reunite him with his most beloved possessions. “But…not right now. Stay a little longer. I want to dance some more.”

He could swear he felt the siren’s lips press his bare shoulder for a moment, but maybe it was just his imagination.

“More dance.”

“Good,” and he was pressing his face against the silken hair, holding the siren tight and letting the tension ease out of his body with each step they took together. “Just once more dance with you, maybe two. Then more music. Always more music.”


End file.
